Blogger of Everyday Stuff and Nonsense. Author.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how we mostly take everything in our lives for granted? I don’t mean to and many a day I stop and stand and stare and appreciate everything that’s before and around me. The garden – its heartbeat quickening now as days lengthen. The wood – still with bare-leafed trees, their upper branches clacking against each other in the wind. Oh yes, I know how to stand and stare and appreciate things but . . . it takes an episode in one’s life to bring you up by the braces and recently I had, what I consider to be, an episode. There has been a legitimate reason why I haven’t been here, tapping out silly blogs and it is this . . .

I’d been poorly for quite some time, my digestive system in total spasm every day, so much so that I could barely leave the house unless there was a loo within trotting distance. After many weeks of this, and several G.P appointments, I was referred for a C.T scan. I’m no fool, I knew they were looking for the Big C.

Waiting for the appointment was difficult, I’ve always been an impatient type. Surprisingly, or maybe not considering the urgency, I only had to wait just over a week.

During this time I became totally introverted. Bowel cancer was the last thought on my mind as I drifted off into spasmodic sleep. It was the first thing on my mind when I woke.

I cried about the possibility of not seeing my newly seeded patch of woodland flowers and grass come to fruition. I stressed about not seeing my newly planted climbing rose in flower this summer, not being able to sit by the pond and watch . . . well, nothing really, just life buzzing around it.

The scan was awful. They inserted gas into my bowel and abdomen and I thought I would cry like a pathetic baby – but I didn’t. Then came the worst bit of all – waiting for the results.

I tried moving on from the worry but it was impossible. I had visions of my grandchildren, Grace 6, and Jake 11, asking why grandma was always too ill to have them over for the day. Who would my son turn to when only a mother would do? And Richard, dear Richard, what would he do without me? As you can see I was totally pathetic, my mind running free like a rabid dog.

On the morning of the results being available at the doctors, Richard was out working with my son. This was good because I needed to be alone. They both had instructions NOT to ring me. I would need time to run it all through my brain, time alone.

I could barely breathe as I sat in the waiting room. I considered bolting out of the door and never stopping. I was on the verge of a panic attack. I was no longer me.

I was called through and all I could think was . . . ‘keep breathing.’

I cannot described how I felt standing before the consulting room door. The doctor was scanning the PC screen as I walked in. He announced that the results weren’t in yet BUT he had looked on the hospital’s site and the scan was clear.

I felt nothing, except disbelief.

‘Are you sure?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘No bowel cancer?’

‘No.’

‘No stomach cancer?’

‘No.’

‘Have you got my name right? You ARE looking at MY results.’

‘Yes, you are clear, nothing abnormal detected.’

I won’t bore you with the rest of the conversation. I walked out of there like a zombie. The fear had been with me for around 6/7 weeks and it refused to allow me to feel anything.

I think I shed a little tear on the way home. Was I really going to see the meadow in the wood blossom? See that bloody rose bloom? Not have to explain to my grandchildren why their normally bonkers grandma was suddenly not bonkers, but always poorly?

I didn’t feel anything until the following day.

I had three days grace and then I went down with a virus that flattened me and I was bedridden for over a week. It’s now been 4 weeks and the virus has moved to my head, Labyrinthitis – apparently. Do I care? Not on your bloody life!

I have now address my health issues and besides being vegetarian (30 + years now) I have gone gluten-free and dairy free and my ‘health’ has improved by 95%.

The biggest thing I learned was this . . . I now understand how other people in this situation feel. I can relate. I feel for them with every ounce of my being. I handled my ‘situation’ by going ‘inward.’ I didn’t discuss it. I took it deep into my very soul and lived with it. That is the downside of being a strong, independent person.

I haven’t become dulled to the experience yet. I hope I never do. I need to feel grateful for the things and people around me – sometimes I’m guilty of forgetting that, or at least I was. Our lives can change in a heartbeat – and do. I’m just so grateful that, on this occasion, my didn’t.

This isn’t my normal blog, as you know, and I won’t be continuing in this vein. I simply wanted to explain my absence.

Love to you all x

Newly seeded woodland flower and grass patch

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In the past I have often found that some things just aren’t worth the effort. However, when the snow came, just after Christmas, and the outside world was transformed from muddy greys and browns to perfect white I knew in my heart that driving the twenty-six miles to the wood in a snow storm would be.

With warnings on the early morning news of ‘Don’t venture out unless you have to,’ we joyously loaded up the old Land Rover with essentials – Jammy Dodgers, Cup a Soup, cheese sandwiches and the makings for tea and coffee for us and buckets of fat balls, mixed corn and everything else that a snow-bound woodland bird might require.

It was still dark as we set off, with the ancient headlights blearily focusing on the driving snow. We can do the trip to the wood in forty minutes on a good day, with a tail wind and in the car. In the Land Rover it takes longer, much longer, and that’s on a good day.

As we chugged round bends with the snow still falling, and now no way of knowing where the road ended and the verge began, we came across a car attempting to climb what, under normal conditions, could be classed as an insignificant rise in the road but today mirrored Everest. It appeared to be moving – and we were moving behind it when suddenly it spun into the centre of the road. Richard, with the reactions of a sleeping dormouse, swung the Land Rover hard to avoid hitting the car. This resulted in the dear thing losing its grip (literally) and jack-knifing to the right. Richard over-steered attempting to miss the car that was now stuck back-to-front in the middle of the road. This resulted in us spinning off to the left, sideways-on, to a wall that got closer and closer.

I don’t know if I stopped breathing and I won’t say my life flashed in front of me but I gritted my teeth, grimaced and waited for us to take-out someone’s front wall, all the while wondering how much it was going to cost to replace.

Fortunately we stopped with a coat of paint between the Land Rover and the wall. At this point Richard emitted a loud, ‘RIGHT!’ and clambered out of the Land Rover into a snow drift. I saw him disappear below the headlights as he fiddled with something, before returning, looking like he’d been iced. He growled his way into the Land Rover and spat, ‘that’s it! I’ve put it into four-wheel drive!’

Now, call me a woman driver if you like but I thought the whole purpose of having the benefit of four-wheel drive was to actually use it when conditions dictated? I didn’t query this, I didn’t need to because I knew he was still feeling monumentally embarrassed for over-steering in the first place (he’s a self-proclaimed super-duper driver you see) and it almost resulting in the bill for rebuilding a wall.

We continued for another half mile or so until we approached a large roundabout. There was a car about to enter the roundabout and we all know the rule – give way to traffic from the right. This we did, only to see the car enter the roundabout, lose its grip, and sail off sideways down the first exit. At this we laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Nervous tension you see.

We reached the wood without further incident and as we pulled up at the gate and saw the beauty of what lay before us we knew the journey had been well worth it. The whole wood was cloaked in white. Snow fell silently. As we drove along the track to our little copse a buzzard took-up before us and flew on silent wings into the falling snow.

The birds were beyond excited to see us as we trudged through the snow, to the shed, laden with their supplies and swooped and fed hungrily as soon as I’d replenished the 8 feeders and 2 bird tables. We have a growing collection of birds now, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, nuthatches, woodpeckers, robins, blackbirds, tree creepers – and we even have a visiting pheasant. I won’t mention the gang (or gangs) of squirrels! They are the bad boys and girls of the wood, chomping their way through everything edible and inedible. They have ruined 4 feeders to date.

Once the wildlife was sorted we put the kettle on and sat and watched the wood. That’s it. We sat and watched the wood. I can’t describe the feeling. Other than the beating of birds’ wings the whole wood was silent. No sound came from the distant road. It was perfect.

Some may say that it was stupid driving all that way to feed birds and sit and stare at snow-covered trees but I don’t care. We haven’t yet had the wood for a full year and I wanted to see it in snow for the first time. I didn’t want to miss that and I didn’t. Sometimes, to make a lasting memory you have to put in a little effort.

Now I’m waiting to see if the area of meadow grass that I planted in the autumn comes up in the spring. Or, if the daffodils I planted along one of the banks can out-fox the squirrels and pop-up and bloom without the little monsters realising they are there. And will the wild garlic I took from the garden and planted in a shady spot grow?

I am, now, at last, understanding the full meaning of the changing of the seasons. It is happening before my very eyes and I couldn’t be more content or happier.

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Gosh! To say I haven’t been around is blatantly stating the flipping obvious. In fact, I wasn’t sure WordPress would let me back in. I had to enter all my details again – after I’d hunted down the notebook that I keep all the details in! Yes, I know, I should assign them to memory. Fat chance equalled only by no chance. So, I hear you ask (well, I can hear one person ask – possibly) I’ve been to the wood.

Shortly before I departed I told you that I’d bought a couple of acres of traumatised woodland? Very old, neglected, partly rotten, woodland? Yes? Good. Well, that’s where I’ve been mainly. Couldn’t possibly divulge other activities.

The wood, named Griddies Copse (grand kiddies = griddies) seemed like an instant joy back in May when we became legal owners of said wood. Unfortunately we also became the legal owners of a rabid swarm of female mosquitoes. Blood sucking little shits that brought everyone out in a boiling, itchy rash. Being the smart arse that I am I soon sourced Jungle Spray and the equivalent by the lorry load, and sprayed . . . and sprayed as soon as my feet exited the car. Great idea. Except the Jungle Spray brought on migraine.

We battled with the little darlings all summer and then breathed sighs of relief when September dawned and they disappeared.

This ran hand-in-hand with a plaque of frogs. They have also taken to the undergrowth now.

Then came the squirrels.

These were no ordinary squirrels. Oh, there might have been the odd one with a normal squirrels I.Q. but the leader of the pack was, and is, a clever little critter. He can remove, take down and sod off with, a whole jar of peanut butter. No jar was ever found. He is also a mechanic and can under screws (again with no sign of the missing screws) and free a whole feeder, full of peanuts. He can bite through feeding tubes as easily as he can gnaw through chain. This is no ordinary squirrel. This is super squirrel with a Philips screw driver.

I swear that I won’t be outwitted by a squirrel, but for this to be true I will have to up my game.

I thought I would love the wood in summer but now that the leaves are on the ground, the morning air is crisp and frosty and the wood smoke drifts lazily, I think I love the autumn/winter more? We will see. We haven’t had it for a whole year yet. We haven’t seen it in every season. The wildlife IS returning. There are tits, nuthatches, woodpeckers, robins – and even a visiting pheasant. We sometimes see a flash of brown in the undergrowth as the muntjac visits.

I’m loving the experience. I’m loving the wildlife. I’m loving the peace and tranquillity. I love the wood. I hear its heartbeat.

Sooooo, when I’m not there I’m sourcing wood for my Woodland Crafts. What, I hear you ask? Woodland Crafts I said. And here’s the thing. I have even figured out how to concoct a Woodland Crafts page on Facebook. Obviously I’m going to give you the link (it might work but I won’t hold my breath) and if you like you could pop over there and take a look. Leave a ‘like’ if you do. Say nothing if you don’t. I’m sensitive – I’ll cry.

Here’s a picture of the ‘winter’ wood with the smoke drifting. It is also the banner for my Woodland Crafts page. OK, enough. I won’t say the words again – for now.

We spent last weekend getting our bearings, avoiding rotten tree branches that swayed precariously and threatened to fall with less than the slightest touch, and trying to avoid squashing baby frogs – lots and lots of baby frogs!

There’s masses of work to be done.

The first job, and of paramount importance obviously, was to erect the two bird tables, the bug box and the seed feeder. Weirdly, nothing had found any of them by Sunday. I think the wood is so old and unattended that the birds don’t even bother looking for food in it, and seriously, why should fat balls, niger and sunflower seeds etc. suddenly appear out of nowhere?

I’ve heard a woodpecker in the distance and I understand that an owl is nesting in another part of the forest. At least one muntjac lives in the main wood because as the Land Rover crept along the path, last Sunday morning, we saw him/her dash across the track, and with a flick of a white under-tail, disappear into the thicket. I also want him/her in my little patch.

We will have left it a whole week since we were last there so I’m hoping that the tables and feeders have been found by then and everything scoffed and little ‘thank you’ notes left.

The main change has occurred in the form of crap-heap, oil-spewing Betsy Land Rover. As some of you know the old girl was off the road. Grounded for bad behaviour. She’d decided to lose her clutch . . . this is similar to a human being losing their grip, I think. She was immovable and quite proud of it sitting out there in front of the lounge window, blocking out light, dripping oil, not earning her keep. She must have really ground her nuts when her rotten, frayed, holey soft top was removed and a hard top screwed on? And then, to add insult to injury, the old wreck had to stand swaying on her tyres as a roof rack was added.

This having been said, she did succumb to Richard tickling her clutch and other bits and she did pass her M.O.T with flying colours, so the old girl is officially back on the road.

I think she quite likes being the vehicle of choice for our woodland visits. I can almost sense her fluffing up her bonnet and adding an extra little spin to her wheels as she majestically tootles down the track and through the trees.

This coming weekend is planned for clearing brambles and felling dead and spindly trees. I want to allow more light in so that it encourages ground flora to grow. Lots to do – lots of planning – but that’s fine. I like being busy and I like planning. Win. Win.

So I’m toddling off now to source a peanut feeder . . .

P.S. I’m wondering what muntjac eat?

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Well . . . the last blog hinted that I might have something to tell you on the next blog – and I have. I mean, I’m always telling you something, be it rubbish or just plain nonsense. But this time I have something quite exciting to tell you, though I’m happy to accept that not everyone will share this excitement, each to their own, as they say.

Drum roll . . .

I’m buying two acres of woodland!

I can imagine heels of hands smacking foreheads, puzzled expressions and gentle tittering because I’ve probably just confirmed what many of you have suspected all along that I am a tad bonkers.

Can’t really argue that point or justify it.

To be honest trees scare me a bit. I’ve seen Lord of the Rings and know exactly what they are capable of. I think it’s the way they wave old, wizened branches in the wind and threaten to release an arm or two like a bolt from the blue. I always imagine being crushed to death. So, why am I buying two acres of woodland? Haven’t got a clue.

I guess it just spoke to me. “O.K. You’re pretty ancient and I can see why you might be more interested in a wooden rocking chair than a couple of acres of oak etc. but get off your fast-spreading butt and boldly go into your next adventure.”

Is excitement, adventure and something new only for the young? I think not dear friends.

I’m going to buy my little copse. I’ve already spent all day Saturday designing and instructing Richard how to assemble a two-acre-size bird table. It’s rather large – but I figure it needs to be. I mean, how many birds do you get to the acre? I’ll need to pick out a nasty old hawthorn and chop off its head to leave a natural stand on which to screw it. It’s way too heavy to hang – it would bring down the tallest sycamore. See! I’m already into the terminology – oak, sycamore, hawthorn! I’m beginning to think I was born for this? I’ll be wearing ‘The Green’ next and humming, ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen . . .dum de dum . . .’

Betsy, the pile-of-crap Land Rover, is now undergoing repairs, an M.O.T, and a new roof. We are going to need her to bring the logs back for the wood burner. It’ll take us half a day to get there in the old girl, she has a top speed of forty miles an hour – and that’s downhill with a strong tail wind and a prayer to Him upstairs.

Richard was a little surprised when I announced that we were buying a wood but he soon got over the shock (he’s had so many over the years –living with me) and now he’s quite excited too. We’ve already started researching fence poles and stock wire to fence our north border and that’ll be huge fun – driving in fence poles through twisted roots and rambling vegetation!

The grand kiddies were most impressed, well, Jake more so than Grace, but Grace is a girl and wasn’t too sure about the toilet arrangements. Weeing wasn’t too much of an imagined horror but when I told them that they would have to dig a hole and poo in it, and then cover it up, it was met with wide-eyes and a side-ways grin from Jake. When I added that was what Bear Grylls did it all seemed rather cool and they can’t wait.

So that’s my news. What do you think? A mad, impetuous fool, an idiot, or something else?

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I’ve reached a worrying point in my life. If not exactly worrying, certainly a point of concern.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not a totally new conception. I’ve had inklings of concern over the past 26 years and this, strangely enough, is the amount of time a certain someone has been in my life – Richard.

I mention him quite a lot. Actually, there’s no ‘quite’ about it. I do mention him a lot.

We have a strange relationship. To the outside world our relationship shouldn’t work. I am seen as the Wicked Witch of the West, even on days when I don’t wear my pointy hat and cackle like a demented maniac, and he is seen as a halo-wearing saint. I’m a bossy cow and he is a sweet little mouse, scurrying around, making my life wonderful with his every perfect action.

In reality, none of this is true, other than the bossy cow bit. But, to the outside world, and family, I rule with a very large baseball bat and he obeys. It’s all crap of course. I don’t own a baseball bat. No, seriously, are these people nuts? Why would he still be here after 26 years if I was the devil incarnate?

Sometimes he’ll joke in the presence of family and say things like, ‘You see the kind of life I have to live?’

Little shit!

I merely smile and say, ‘It isn’t compulsory you know. You can leave at any time.’

Then, they’ll be times when he’s confounded by a massive conundrum and I’ll kindly solve the problem for him. For instance, the other day he couldn’t find the 50ml line on a measuring jug so I assisted by grabbing said jug and stabbing the 50ml mark with a sharp forefinger nail. ‘I don’t know what you’ll do when I’m gone, and you have to sort out these problems for yourself, I said.’

‘Neither do I,’ he replied.

It’s a throw-away comment and one he often uses – but I can tell he’s serious and that he means it.

Anyway . . . what am I drivelling on about? I’ve strayed off course by ten miles. What I was going to explain is why I’ve reached this ‘point of concern.’ This is why . . .

On Monday the dear soul toddled off for the day to help my son, who’s a landscape gardener, with the tidying of a particularly neglected garden. I resisted hanging out the flags from the upstairs windows and did my best to hide my joy and stupid grin as he said goodbye and exited the house.

A whole day to myself. What to do? Well, I had a plan.

Some time ago I bought a very large piece of solid pine furniture for the kitchen. The piece in question looked fine in the village shop showroom but when we got it home the buttery-coloured pine did not match the existing table and chairs. Obviously, I couldn’t admit to having made a cock-up and pretended that it was lovely. Delightful. What a good eye I had and what a great choice I’d made.

It looked crap. No other word for it. It stuck out like a large sore thumb. Sooooo . . . and here’s the thing . . . I decided to restain it while Richard was out.

Doesn’t sound very risky does it? Just whack a colour on top. What were the chances of it still not matching the table and chairs? That wouldn’t happen, would it? Nah, course not.

So, with brush and stain in my little hands, and with some trepidation, I applied a little on the back outside leg and stood back. Then I made a cup of tea.

On return it looked OK. Pretty much OK. With Dell Boy’s words circling my head, ‘He who dares wins, Rodney!’ I started in earnest.

An hour later and it was done. I stood back, compared it to the mirror. The Table. The chairs. Pretty bloody close if you ask me. No more yellowy, buttery, yuck-yuck pine but – well – different.

I washed my brush, because I’m good like that, and then removed a few splashes from the floor tiles and that was that.

When Richard came home, something had cropped up meantime – but I’ll tell you more about that when I know for certain that the thing that cropped-up is going ahead – and I shouted down the hall, ‘Don’t come in we are going straight out.’

He came in.

‘I need to post some stuff,’ he said. ‘It’s urgent.’

So, I waited while he dragged out a chair, found addresses from the P.C, opened one of the drawers, grabbed 5 envelopes, closed the drawer, packed the items, threw them on top of the drawer unit and then stood up saying, ‘OK, let’s go.’

We went.

This was on Monday. It is now Wednesday and HE STILL HASN’T NOTICED THAT THE HUGE DRAWER UNIT THAT HE CONSTANTLY USES HASN’T CHANGED COLOUR!

This is my concern. What if I’m flat on my back on the kitchen floor one day, expired? Will he even bloody notice that I’VE changed colour?

Fortunately, it won’t really matter because I’ll have expired – but it isn’t very reassuring, is it?

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So, there was I . . . (I feel like I should be writing – waiting at the church! You have to be a certain age ) enjoying the day, busily doing nothing. Taking in the bursting buds and the buzzing bees when I decided that it was time I DID do something. Richard had toddled off to visit his mother and I had quite a few hours to myself to look forward to. I left the bursting buds and the buzzing bees, convinced that they would manage without me and trundled back to the house.

Determined not to sit at the laptop all morning, I filled the floor steamer and set about steaming the kitchen and hall floors. That went well so I made a cup of tea, before pulling out the kitchen chair and settling in front of the laptop. Well, I had managed to do something before it called me to it!

I had a quick whizz around Twitter, checked my emails and then opened Facebook with the intention of posting to the gardening group. A post on the general thread caught my eye and I clicked on it. ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

Window on top of window flooded the P.C screen and a siren sounded. Above the siren, a woman’s voice told me, ‘DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SWITCH OFF THE COMPUTER or a virus will be placed on it. YOUR IDENTITY MAY BE STOLEN and your data accessed. Ring this number IMMEDIATELY and an operative will help you through this.’

WTF?

Something similar had happened a few weeks earlier. Obviously, I did what most people do in this situation – I smashed every key on the keypad, switched off the power, disconnected the internet, blah, blah, blah.

So, here I was again, clicking everything in sight. Banging the keys. Basically doing everything the voice had told me not to do. I couldn’t clear the screen so I took a picture of it and sent it to my brother via my tablet. My fear was that it was genuine. Yes, I know, I can’t believe I even let the thought enter my head – but it did, because it looked very genuine, like it had come straight from Microsoft. My brother treated me like a five-year old and calmly talked me through it. After a few clicks, here and there, I managed to remove it – my brother managed to remove it.

I kinda went ballistic. No one was around. Only Chea, sitting on the table at the side of me, calmly cleaning her bottom – and she is quite used to my ballistic outbursts.

You see, what makes someone do this? What kind of brain bypass have they had? Truly, if I could have got hold of them I would now be in prison – and they would be in A and E having their tiny, little, insignificant penis stitched back on – all assuming that the sodding moron was a bloke – but I’m sure it was.

And, that’s not all. Once upon a time, when I was naïve (stupid) I’d jump up and down, gushing, thrilled – yes, totally thrilled, even beyond words, that someone wanted to be my friend on Facebook. Not anymore.

Now I vet these ‘friend’ requests with the mind and suspicions of Hercule Poirot. On average I would say that I get half-a-dozen requests a week from men. Single. Divorced. Etc. When I look into them I find an empty timeline and no existing friends – once or twice another female ‘friend’ is evident – usually beautiful and short of enough dosh to buy clothes- obviously. I’m sorry, but if you are a bloke looking for cyber-sex or a cheeky little pit-pat tennis match/ you show me yours and I’ll show you mine, bugger off! I once had a request from a guy in U.S.A offering me marriage, a home on a ranch, and four children to look after. Now, had he been offering me marriage, a home on a ranch and four horses to look after I might have been buying a one-way ticket to U.S.A – though, in all honesty he did say he would provide that.

Once, I accepted someone based on their profile picture, which admittedly was a little hard to make out but at that point I wasn’t wearing my super-duper P.C. specs and I thought the profile picture looked like mountains. After accepting him, and on closer examination, the mountains were actually his stupendous penis sticking up from his belly. Frankly, I think the whole thing had been superimposed and he’d grafted-on a horse’s penis. Yes, I deleted him.

Social media is not a safe place for the innocent – or the poorly sighted.

And Twitter? Twitter, to my mind, is safer. But you get a trickster of a different type on Twitter. Here you get the ‘follower’ who follows you, you follow back, and then he/she unfollows you. I now use https://manageflitter.com/ once a week to unfollow those who have unfollowed me. Well, bugger off, fair’s fair.

And to finish off with where I almost started – waiting at the church. The punch line to this 1962 song is;

There was I, waiting at the church,
Waiting at the church,
Waiting at the church;
When I found he’d left me in the lurch,
Lor, how it did upset me!
All at once, he sent me round a note
Here’s the very note,
This is what he wrote:
“Can’t get away to marry you today,
My wife, won’t let me!”

You see, more deceit. Watch your backs my friends.

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‘The cat crept in the crypt, crapped and crept out again,’ is something that a friend and I used to say back in the dark ages – when I was married. My husband was a vet and therefore we lived in a house provided by the practice. It was a rambling old thing, no heating to talk of, damp mites living in the cupboards (but that’s another story) and a mish-mash of old furniture. Did any of that matter? Not really. Except the damp mites of course – but as I said that’s another story

I was a vet’s wife. I loved animals. I loved him – at the time. And life was hunky dory, I guess.

In this ‘rambling old thing,’ there was a pantry. It lead off the hallway and you had to take a step down to a quarry-tiled floor. It had a cold slab with wooden shelves above it. Having three cats and an English Setter – that wasn’t beyond golloping down cat faeces given less than half a chance, it seemed like a good idea, and the obvious answer, to put the litter trays in there. I will state at this point that NO food was kept in there!

It worked quite well and provided hours of silly tittering. My friend and I would be having coffee or whatever and the sound of the cat-flap swinging, as one of the cats entered to do their stuff or excited having done their stuff, echoed around the house. You see, it was a very large cat flap and swung manically against a metal frame. At this sound my friend and I would look at each other and roar, ‘the cat’s crept in the crypt – crapped and crept out again!’

Little things please little minds.

This isn’t something that I think about on a regular basis – just very occasionally – when something reminds me. And something reminded me on Sunday morning.

Toddling up the garden, on the way to the greenhouse and the uncovering of the tender plants and the turning off of the propagators, I was perplexed to see the far door of the second greenhouse slightly open – about eight inches. Perplexed because I knew for a fact that I’d secured it the previous day. On closer examination I noticed a heap of compost scratched out of the border and deposited on the central concrete pathway. THEN I noticed that the fifth baby tomato plant, only planted the previous day, had disappeared. Yes, I’d done my usually impatient thing of planting them into the ground as soon as they had true leaves but they were not THAT small that they should have disappeared.

I can’t believe that Chea pushed her way in there and scratched it out because she won’t even push through a door that’s off the catch. Oh, no. We have to jump up and down three million times a day to let her out . . . in . . . out . . . in. You get the picture?

So, after applying a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ type of logic I can only assume that a neighbour’s cat pushed its way in, ‘crept in the greenhouse, crapped and crept out again?’ But just why the little bugger had to have it away with my baby tomato plant will have to remain a mystery!

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As most of you know I’m not the kind of person to blow my own trumpet. Never have been. Never will be. And why should I? What’s so great about me? Nothing. I’m pretty average at most things, slightly better at some than others, and before you go thinking that I’m expecting you to rush in with, ‘Of course you are special’ and ‘look at all the things you’ve achieved in your long time on the planet,’ that is NOT where this is leading. This is leading to actually being surprised at learning, straight from the horse’s mouth, Richard, that I AM really good at something.

So, this is how it went – I was in the garden busily minding my own business and watching the garden coming to life before my eyes when, he stomped up the garden and shattered the moment.

‘Can you come and look at this?’ he shouted over the bud-bursting gooseberry bushes.

‘Look at what?’ I said, a tad irritably. You see, he always has something that has to be done NOW and it will never wait, though in reality most ‘urgent’ things could have waited.

‘Just come and look will you?’

‘What AT?’ I said, even more irritably. ‘Can’t you just cut the suspense and TELL me?’

He dithered on the spot a bit before saying, ‘No. I need you down at the garage.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve got something living in there and I don’t know what it is?’

I rolled my eyes a bit and held up my palms to Him above. ‘What do you mean you’ve got something living in there? Give me a clue. If you don’t know what it is how am I supposed to know?’

‘Because you’re really good at this kind of thing,’ he said.

‘What kind of thing?’

‘Shit.’

‘Shit?’

‘Yes,’ he said, as I now caught up with him and started to head towards the house and the garage. ‘I need you to look and tell me what kind of shit it is.’

Eh?

‘What it’s come out of,’ he elaborated.

‘Who am I?’ I stage whispered as we passed the neighbour on the other side of the fence, ‘a crap expert?’ (Or should that be an expert on crap? Yes, I think so)

‘Shush,’ he stage whispered back.

As we reached the garage he pointed to a shelf. ‘Look!’

I looked.

‘What shit is that?’

Well, it didn’t take Poirot to decipher this little mystery, the entire shelf was littered with large rice-shaped droppings and chewed-up insulation foam where the ‘mystery’ creature had obviously entered. ‘A rat,’ I said. ‘Rat poo.’

‘Are you sure?’

You see – he asks my opinion and then questions it. Was my answer a disappointment? Had he wanted it to belong to some creature previously assumed extinct? ‘It’s rat poo,’ I repeated.

‘I mean – it isn’t mouse droppings, then?’

‘Well, it would be a bloody big mouse – or a normal size mouse with a bloody big bum, in that case, don’t you think?’

With that I toddled back up the garden and continued watching the gooseberry buds open.

After I’d finished mumbling to myself I realised that Richard was probably asking the right person. After all, I’ve been dealing with one kind of shit after another, all my life.

Even Chea delights in scratching huge holes in my greenhouse borders and sits doing her business, right under my nose, like it’s the most natural thing in the world and she expects me to applaud at the final squeeze.

I even have bags of the stuff, farmyard manure and horse manure, stacked-up by the side of the greenhouse ready to use if I should deem it necessary. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the crap of life!

So, maybe Richard was right and I am actually good at something? But keep it quiet. I’m not sure I want that little fact as my epitaph!

Take care all xx

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There was I – full of the joys of spring and, fuelled by my over enthusiasm, I declared to my newly formed gardening group, ‘I’m off to weed a border!’ No harm there. Nothing at all ominous about that. Just off to weed a border at the side of the path.

Two hours later and after tugging, pulling, swearing and sweating I stood up, stood back, and admired my work. Brilliant! Nothing short of brilliant. Gone was the awful couch grass invading from my neighbour’s garden and tangling itself around willow roots and under the path. Gone were the thick, stubbornly rooted spring-flowering creeper thingy’s. Just lovely rich soil smiled back at me. Happy with my work I toddled back into the house. This was Saturday.

At 3 a.m. Sunday I woke thinking someone had dropped a house brick on my head. The pain was excruciating – I kid you not – I couldn’t raise my head at all without searing pain. Pain so bad that all I could do was lie there – and as we all know pain in the early hours is always far worse.

By sliding my flattened hand under the side of my face and supporting my head I eventually managed to sit up and make it downstairs where I suffered a Weetabix followed by two paracetamol and an ice pack to my neck bones. This went down well in the freezing cold kitchen! By 5 a.m. I struggled back to bed.

Sunday had been prearranged. It was Richard’s birthday and I’d organised a family meal out. When he caught a glimpse of me, shuffling along, imitating the Hunch Back of Notre Dame, he said, ‘You need to go back to bed.’ Yeah. Cheers for that. Back to bed where he could ignore my pain until I died a slow and lingering death because he’d forgotten all about me!’ At this point I had to tell him I couldn’t go back to bed because being the lovely, wonderful person that I am I’d arranged a fricking surprise meal for him. This was met with scepticism, a narrowing of the eyes and a slight nod of the head. You see, he’s a simple soul, enjoying the simple pleasures in life and never really celebrates his birthday. Unfortunately, my mum died on his birthday, some eighteen years ago now and, originally, it did rather take the shine off the celebrations. The twelth of March became the day mum died, not the day Richard was born. Nowadays, I put him first – after taking flowers to the church.

So, off we went. I looked like the walking dead. I felt worse. I sat at the end of the table so that I could, by staring straight ahead, see everyone without moving a muscle – literally.

Somehow I made it home alive. Richard had a lovely time – and he even liked my gift to him – a new Samsung tablet. However, when, later, he came up to bed he found me sobbing. Yeah, OK, so I’m a wimp. I couldn’t help it. The pain level that had, I suppose, been around eight had soared to ten. The slight window of least pain, if I held my head just right, had slammed shut. Everything hurt. At this point he said, ‘Right, we’re going to the hospital!’

Earlier I’d said, ‘I think I need to go to the hospital’.

My son had said, ‘They won’t do anything Mum.’

Richard had said, ‘Do you really want to sit in A and E for twelve hours?’

I knew they wouldn’t ‘do’ anything and no I did not want to ‘sit in A and E for twelve hours,’ but don’t they have things like heroin, morphine and stuff?

Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to get my clothes back on so he held me till I stopped sobbing, rubbed my neck (it didn’t help but he was trying bless him) and then fetched me some yogurt and honey so that I could take some painkillers.See how I always try to eat something before taking painkillers? This way I figure I won’t be adding stomach ulcers to my fast-growing list of complaints?

Monday and Tuesday were spent in bed, unable to move. Wednesday and Thursday I got up in the morning and went back to bed in the afternoon. Friday I made it through most of the day and so on and so on. . .

It still isn’t right but I can now live with it without turning into a pathetic, sobbing female. That’s not me, you see.

I know how it happened. Having three degenerative neck discs, whose soft protective padding is fast disappearing, stretching over the borders and applying all that pressure on my discs just didn’t work. They couldn’t support the weight of my head.

But, positives from negatives – I read three novels (I’d hardly read anything at all till then) and I had some rest – although enforced – but rest all the same.

I’ve started pottering in the garden again. Managed to toddle round a couple of garden centres and purchase a few bits . . . so there you go.

I have found that the hardest thing about growing older is accepting it. I expect my body to keep up with my mind. It can’t. I have things to do popping into it constantly. I remember my darling father, it his last years, getting very frustrated and angry with himself because, due to his ever-increasing health problems he felt useless. He couldn’t do this and he couldn’t do that. I, of course, being the sensible and logical person that I am told him, ‘No, of course you can’t do those things. BUT instead of focusing what you can’t do focus on what you can do.’ At the time it made perfect sense to me – but that was before I was reaching the point of realising that I can’t do some of the things that I used to do.

No more throwing paving slabs around. No more climbing the apple tree to prune the odd branch. No more throwing bags of compost around. And . . . it appears, no more digging borders! I’m sorry, Daddy, I was an insensitive idiot.